I had finished my very, very fine Slow Ride chicken salad sandwich and was chatting with Ryan Soroka, one of the three Eatsie Boys principals, while I purchased a sack of Greenway Coffee Company freshly roasted beans to use use at home. (That’s one of the amenities that makes Eatsie Boys Cafe so useful. So is the selection of Rebecca Masson’s excellent cookies on display.)

Soroka asked if I had tried any of the beers the Eatsie Boys are now brewing at their 8th Wonder Brewery just east of downtown. I had not, but I had been curious about them, so we indulged in some black humor about the vagaries of Texas beer and wine regulations. For decades they were written by and for the powerful alcohol distribution lobby, so that the state’s burgeoning network of wineries and craft brewers were hampered as to where and how they could sell their wares.

That’s starting to change a little bit, as of this past legislative session. (Read Chronicle beer blogger Ronnie Crocker on the regulation overhaul here.) But it still irks me to no end that I can’t enjoy an 8thWonder beer along with my Eatsie Boys sandwich right there in the cafe of the folks who made them both. That impossibility strikes at the heart of what it means to have a dynamic local food-and-drink culture.

However. At Soroka’s suggestion, by walking down the ivy-clad walkway to Eatsie Boys’ next door neighbor, the venerable Black Labrador pub, I was able to order a pint glass of 8th Wonder Intellectuale dark-blonde ale on tap. So that’s what I did for dessert.

I was quite taken with it. A hybrid of Witbier, Blonde Ale and Belgian Golden Ale styles, it was refreshing enough for a hot summer day while still showing enough character to keep me interested. An edge of spice, clear rounded fruit, enough laid-back happiness to make me happy.

But I still find it bizarre and antediluvian that I had to walk next door to get it.